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A review by weaselweader
Dead Right by Peter Robinson
4.0
“Someone … kicked seven shades of shit out of him … sometime after eleven o’clock last night.”
Jason Fox, an angry, young, white man, up to his neck with hatred, racism and xenophobia in the local neo-Nazi group, the Albion League, is stomped to death in an alley outside a local pub after closing time. Racial tensions rise to the boiling point when it seems open and shut that a group of men of color – Pakistani and Arab, to be more painfully precise – are the killers but insufficient evidence demands that, according to the law, they must be released.
DEAD RIGHT is a superb word play title for a first-rate police procedural that deals with an issue that is front and center in headlines today all around the world. Banks continues to be the Inspector Banks that his growing legion of fans expect him to be – an observant, accomplished investigator who knows his place is in the field and would rather be any place other than behind a desk “co-ordinating”; a lover of classical music, most notably opera (he loves Cosi Fan Tutte), accompanied by a couple of fingers of good Scotch (Laphroaig is a special favourite); a family man who misses a daughter newly out of the house and off to college; and, a faithful and loving but less than dutiful, attentive husband who is duly shocked by a wife looking for some time and space to herself.
DEAD RIGHT is vintage Robinson materiel and a most satisfying read. Detective Constable Susan Gay’s infatuation with Banks is left hanging and readers will be wondering where that will go (or not) in the next instalment. Count me in.
Paul Weiss
Jason Fox, an angry, young, white man, up to his neck with hatred, racism and xenophobia in the local neo-Nazi group, the Albion League, is stomped to death in an alley outside a local pub after closing time. Racial tensions rise to the boiling point when it seems open and shut that a group of men of color – Pakistani and Arab, to be more painfully precise – are the killers but insufficient evidence demands that, according to the law, they must be released.
DEAD RIGHT is a superb word play title for a first-rate police procedural that deals with an issue that is front and center in headlines today all around the world. Banks continues to be the Inspector Banks that his growing legion of fans expect him to be – an observant, accomplished investigator who knows his place is in the field and would rather be any place other than behind a desk “co-ordinating”; a lover of classical music, most notably opera (he loves Cosi Fan Tutte), accompanied by a couple of fingers of good Scotch (Laphroaig is a special favourite); a family man who misses a daughter newly out of the house and off to college; and, a faithful and loving but less than dutiful, attentive husband who is duly shocked by a wife looking for some time and space to herself.
DEAD RIGHT is vintage Robinson materiel and a most satisfying read. Detective Constable Susan Gay’s infatuation with Banks is left hanging and readers will be wondering where that will go (or not) in the next instalment. Count me in.
Paul Weiss